Crappy Personas vs. Robust Personas
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2007/11/14/crappy-personas-vs-robust-personas/

Spool, Jared M.
User Interface Engineering
2007

Abstract:

If you're just going to guess on the personas, why bother? Just design for yourself, like the 37Signals team does. However, when you do the field studies, you create relationships with the people in your research. You can return to those people and ask them questions. You can learn about the things they do.